


talk the talk

by bertee



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crack, Gen, Pre-Canon, Teenage Winchesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-02 03:39:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bertee/pseuds/bertee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchesters are not a normal family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	talk the talk

It starts small at first.

Sam's used to ignoring Dad by now, tuning him out so he can concentrate on his science homework or his lit essay or whatever else he's trying to do that doesn't involve planning the next hunt with his father. The orders come as fast and sharp as ever, but Sam obeys them begrudgingly, not giving his Dad too much thought.

And so he only notices when Dean starts doing it too.

"Hey, Sam, pass me my blades, would you?"

Absorbed in a math problem about two trains which both really want to get to Chicago, Sam purses his lips at Dean's request and asks, "Blades? What, did Dad get you to take up ice skating now?"

Dean elbows him in the back of the head as he moves to grab his knives. "Cram it, asshat."

Sam shakes his hair out of his eyes and scowls at Dean. "Fuck you too."

Dean ruffles his hair as soon as Sam gets it flattened down. "Watch your caketrap."

Sam frowns. Despite having a mouth like a sailor himself, Dean's hypocritical response to Sam cursing is nothing new. 'Caketrap', on the other hand…

"Caketrap?" he repeats, abandoning the two trains and turning to face Dean. "We don't even eat cake. You always make Dad buy pie."

"It's just a word, Sammy."

"It's a stupid word."

"Well, your mug is a stupid word."

Sam's nose crinkles. He's used to incomprehensible insults from his brother but usually they seem at least mildly insulting. "Dean, my mug says 'Inkster Realtors' on it. You stole it last time we were in North Dakota."

"Not that mug, asshat," Dean says. He tucks his knives under one arm and pats Sam on the cheek. "This mug."

"My face?"

Dean grins and heads back over to the cleaning supplies laid out on the bed. Sam flounders for a moment at the fact that his brother is apparently speaking in code but his confusion is superceded by the inability to let Dean win an argument.

Huffing out a breath, he turns back to the impending train collision and mutters, "Your face is stupider than mine."

 

+++

 

He intends to mention it to Dad when he gets back.

Rationally, he knows it's probably nothing, just some weird phrases Dean picked up at school or from whatever crap he watches on TV, but it's better safe than sorry. He doesn't want Dean's tongue to fall out one day because a sneaky witch put a vocabulary curse on him. He learned his lesson from the curse that had accompanied Dad's sudden fondness for kittens.

However, he doesn't get chance to say anything when Dad walks through the door, tosses Dean the keys to the Impala, and tells him, "I left the wheels on the blacktop out front. Go Mary Poppins her up."

Sam starts to suspect the problem may be bigger than he thought.

 

+++

 

It goes on for another two weeks.

Sam searches the motel room for hexbags, washes their clothes in holy water, adds extra salt to all their food, and blurts out "Christo" at random interludes but to no avail. Dad keeps calling the phone 'the blower', Dean refers to the school janitors as 'mop jockeys', and they nod in approval when Sam sets out the salt lines every night, reminding him again and again about 'salt being a spirit deterrent.'

Sam puts up with it as long as he can, especially now he's sure there's nothing supernatural behind it, but when Dean says "Let's Ghostbuster these mothers!" for the third time that day, he snaps.

"No!"

Dad and Dean stop in their tracks, bags slung over their shoulders and guns in their hands as Sam stands in the doorway and blocks their way. "You have to stop."

Dad and Dean look at each other but, as always, Dean is the one to speak first. "Stop what, Sammy?"

"Talking like that," Sam says. It sounds pathetic as soon as it comes out of his mouth but Sam figures he's gone too far to back out now. "I- We-" He sighs. "Ghostbusters is not a verb, Dean!"

Dad's gaze is cold. "We don't have time for this, Sam."

"We gotta run, Sammy," Dean agrees. "This town's gonna go all Dawn of the Dead on us if we don't stop those spirits."

Sam's shoulders sag. "Why can't you just say that the spirits are going to reanimate corpses?"

"He did," Dad says firmly. "Now quit stalling and get in the car, Sam. These spirits aren't going to gank themselves."

Sam slams the door shut. He's the one who did the research; he knows the spirits can wait.

"What's wrong with you?" he asks, more frustrated than worried. "Why do you have to talk like this? Why can't you just say 'kill' like normal people?"

"Because we're not normal!" Dad barks. He steps forward, sawed-off in hand, and Sam gulps as he looks between his father and brother. "This is just how it is, Sam."

He's relieved when Dean appears at his side, putting his hand on Dad's chest and inserting himself between the two of them as he says, "Look, Sammy, we're never gonna have some normal, apple-pie life-"

"What the fuck is an apple-pie life?" Sam interrupts. "Just say 'normal life'!"

Dean ignores him. "We're different," he says sincerely. "I know you want to fit in at school, Sam, but while you're staring at your algebra books, there are ghosts that need ganking. You can't forget that."

"I'm not trying to forget it," Sam pleads. "But why do the ghosts need to be ganked? It's not even a real word…"

"Enough," Dad snaps. His tone is harsh enough that Sam knows his arguments won't get him anywhere but he's not about to give up yet. "Both of you get in the car. Now."

Sam folds his arms across his chest. "Not until you stop saying 'gank'."

"You little-"

"Dad!" Dean cuts in, putting himself more solidly between Sam and their father. "Not now, okay?"

He turns back to Sam, addressing him like Sam is something dangerous that is going to eat his face at any moment. (It's been a stressful two weeks. Sam can't rule anything out.) "Okay, Sammy, if you want us to stop saying it, we'll stop."

Sam exhales in relief. "Thank you."

Dean smiles. "You ready to go?"

Sam nods and watches Dean's smile grow wider when opens the door. "Awesome." He pats Sam on the shoulder. "Let's go ice some spirits."

 

+++

 

They don't stop saying 'gank'.

It seems to get worse after Sam's outburst, with both Dean and Dad refusing to use the normal words for things, purely on the basis that they're the Winchesters and the Winchesters aren't normal. Sam wonders briefly if this is somehow a violation of his constitutional rights and is disappointed when his textbooks don't support this theory.

Unfortunately, Dad seems to want him to join in with the Winchester crazy-talk and as always, non-compliance leads to more training.

Which is how Sam ends up running laps of the motel while Dean sits on the hood of the Impala and shouts different words for 'brain' at him every time he runs past.

Somewhere between 'melon', 'grapefruit', 'walnut', and 'custard', Sam becomes convinced Dean is just shouting random foodstuffs to mock him.

No-one could use that many names for someone's head.

 

+++

 

Insults change too.

There are some constants -- Dean still calls Sam a bitch, Sam still calls Dean a jerk, and they both still refer to monsters as dicks -- but aside from those, Sam experiences a range of new and varied namecalling from his brother.

Some are acceptable, like 'douchebag'; some are weirdly old-fashioned, like 'mook'; and some are straight-up weird. Sam doesn't want to think too hard about how Dean came up with 'bag of dicks'.

He puts up with it for the most part. However, on the rare occasions that he retorts with 'shithead', he gets yelled at by Dad for his language. Apparently his father is okay with Dean calling ghouls 'asswipes' but not okay with Sam calling vengeful spirits 'fuckers'.

Sam gave up trying to understand his Dad a long time ago.

He means to stick to his guns, he really does. He intends to talk like a normal person and blend in and not give in to his family's weirdness but there's only so many times a guy can be called a dickbag before he caves.

He can't help but thoroughly enjoy the offended look on Dean's face when Sam calls him an assmonkey.

 

+++

 

It takes another two months for Sam to yield completely.

They're in Idaho, hunting yet another spirit which has decided to possess people. Sam's not sure when possession became the cool thing for spirits to do with their time instead of just throwing furniture around the room and seeking vengeance, but the rash of possession cases has at least given Dean and Dad a chance to expand their vocabulary further than it ever needed to be expanded.

"Sam!" Dad yells, throwing his lighter across the graveyard. "You torch the bones! We'll deal with the meatsuit!"

Sam hides his grimace as he catches the lighter but as he runs for the open grave, he can't resist mumbling under his breath, "It's a goddamn corpse."

"Hey!" Dean shouts, waving his arms in the air to attract the attention of the currently spirit-filled corpse. "Over here!" He pats his belly. "Some nice juicy intestines in here for you."

Dropping down into the grave, Sam kicks the coffin open and quietly judges Dean's attempts at luring the spirit. He's pretty sure he could stand up there singing the national anthem and still lure the spirit to him. Descriptions of the juicyness of Dean's intestines are really not necessary.

The body of Mr Nathan Clark stares up at him from the grave and Sam douses him in lighter fluid while the fight clatters on above him. He hears a thump of a body hitting a gravestone and rolls his eyes when it's followed by Dean's familiar curse, "Douchenozzle!"

Hauling himself up out of the grave, Sam catches sight of Dad swinging a machete at the possessed body. It already looks worse for wear, what with being underground for a month and then controlled by the ghost of an angry accountant who apparently has a lot of feelings about fiscal irresponsibility, but Sam winces at the way its arm flops and jerks when Dad slices at it with his machete.

The corpse lashes out, sending Dad flying through the gravestones, but Dean is soon on his feet again, charging into the fray with the shout, "Stop riding that meatsack, Nathan!"

Somehow Dean's word choices are often disgustingly vivid and weirdly sexual at the same time. If they'd been a normal family, Sam might've suggested counseling.

"We're gonna put you down, meatpuppet," Dad calls, pulling himself to his feet and joining Dean in fighting off the preternaturally strong corpse. Glancing over his shoulder, he yells in Sam's general direction, "The body, Sam! Now!"

Briefly distracted by the exciting new uses of 'meat' as a prefix, Sam turns his attention back to the body in the grave and fumbles with the lighter as he sets fire to a book of matches he'd swiped from the motel. They go up quickly, burning bright and hot in his hand, and he drops it into the grave to see the burst of flames as the fluid ignites.

Nathan Clark's scream fills the graveyard when the reanimated corpse stumbles back from Dad and Dean. It drops to its knees while its eyes and mouth flash with fire before slumping lifelessly to the ground as the spirit finally departs, leaving the three of them alone in the cemetary.

Sam's still standing by the open grave as he watches Dad help Dean. Dad claps him on the shoulder and then turns away to retrieve the weapons that were knocked away in the fight, with Dean following right behind him.

They're moving slowly -- Sam guesses he'll be bandaging more than one injury that night -- but since they're all alive, he decides the hunt can be counted as a success.

Relief and tiredness break down some of Sam's barriers as he wipes his muddy hands on his jeans. Looking down into the grave, he watches the flames dance below him and finally gives in to temptation.

Despite his reservations, Sam feels truly like a Winchester when he says proudly, "Well, I guess you won't be skippering any more meatboats, assclown."


End file.
